- ISBN13: 9780441005345
- Condition: New
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Product Description
A killer strikes Southwood–and he’s no mortal. Now sorceress and thief Sham must use all of her magical knowledge to send the demon away!.
S. A. Cain @ 3:40 pm
This is a fantastic book! I read it in less than twelve hours, and that’s with working and eating in the middle of that!
Where to begin? The characters are wonderful. Sham is a complex character, with a painful past but the strong will to survive it and move on. She is wily enough to survive life in Purgatory, the Southwoods slum, yet tender-hearted enough to learn to care for people she was used to hating. Kerim is humorous, regal, dangerous, and intelligent–all the things we want from a hero! The supporting characters are wonderful; Dickon, Elris, Talbot, Lady Sky all make the story better with their special personalities.
The writing is great. The dialogue is excellent, with witty repartee between the characters that is absolutely believable and absolutely hysterical. The description of surroundings and clothes are wonderfully detailed. I could see the action in my mind as I read. My one complaint about the writing would be the infrequent shifts in the third-person point-of-view; usually the POV character was Sham, but very occasionally is changed to Kerim, the demon, and a couple others.
The plot is intriguing…a demon stalking the halls of the Castle, with a thief/magician hired to pose as the Reeve’s Mistress in order to solve the mystery. And though you may have suspicions about the demon’s identity, your first two guesses will be wrong!
I highly recommend this book, and I am actively seeking out others by this author!
Anonymous @ 3:56 pm
I’ve read this book several times, and am entralled. The characters are extremely well-rounded, and their ability to infuse a nearly hopeless situation with both comedic reparte and a budding romance is delightful. The plot is basically a light-weight mystery, but is carried off with panache. The resoltion is spectacular and logically devolved. The writing is fluid without being flowery, and the world is richly woven. Unlike many fantasy novels, magic and mundane forces are well balanced, and the magic is constrained to follow some (fairly simplistic) rules. The culture and events are believable, detailed and provide an excellent and engrossing backdrop. In summary, this is a great tale wonderfully told. Kudos to the author.
Jayne G. Holt @ 4:31 pm
I love Patricia Briggs but discovered her late, after her early books were out of print and so hard to find and expensive. So I was excited about the chance to download a couple as e-books.
When Demons Walk is her 3rd book and it seemed a bit rough to me even though her engaging writing style is in evidence. The story is pretty light and moves along at a fast clip. The charactors are likeable and the heroine, Sham, is quite strong and competent from the start of the story. However, I think it needed better editing. There were some rather abrupt plot points- at one point, the hero’s brother is a suspect and Sham notes that the hero, Kerim, doesn’t seem surprised at the idea. But this is never followed up with any evidence to show us why this brother might be capable of such violence. Then, when the brother is cleared in a rather unfortunate and final manner, we are told that the hero grieves but his grief seems almost an afterthought. I think Kerim’s mother really should have been fleshed out more, also. The romance felt kind of formulaic in some points- particularly the moment when she realizes she is in love but sees their different social stations as a barrier. And the blooming of their love, while inevitable and no surprise to the reader, did not flow in a natural manner: there was just the rote transition from grudging respect to witty banter to full blown love. The chemistry between the two was good, though.
If you haven’t read any Patricia Briggs, I recommend Dragon Bones and Dragon Blood. These are later works with much more depth and subtlety than When Demons Walk. However, if you are like me and have read all her currently-in-print books and want more, definitely read this book- it was a lot of fun.
Sires @ 4:40 pm
In this book Patricia Briggs takes a old clunker of a romance theme– the fake relationship– and turns it into an engaging fantasy story with only one sour note.
Fake relationships litter the landscape in romance novels. It’s a favorite way to get two individuals into proximity without too much work. Usually the reason for the masquerade is quickly forgotten and the snogging begins. However, Patricia Briggs uses this device instead to worm her engaging thief/mage into the Court and the company of the Reeve.
Bad things are happening at the Court and the Reeeve needs someone with Mage talent to help him ferret out the source of the trouble. Sham, who has her own agenda based on her past, agrees to masquerade as the Reeve’s mistress in order to be brought inside the Court. During the masquerade she has to deal with the Reeve’s mother, his best friends widow and assorted mysterious happenings.
The one sour note I mentions above happens late in the story and if the reader doesn’t see it coming then the reader is asleep at the wheel. It does get the heroine where the author needs her to be but it definitely could have been better handled. However, after that misstep the book picks up and wends its way to a satisfying climax.
A happy combination of romance, politics and magery.
hwm22 @ 7:14 pm
Hm, I’m a bit embarrassed. I mean here we have a book which is basically a romance, mixed with some mystery elements and set in a fantasy landscape (you can’t get much lighter) and yet I liked it. I liked it so much, I gave it four stars.
The heroine is flashy and sassy, the hero well muscled and and has the famous soft spot under a crusty exterior. Their dialogues are fast paced and witty, the plot flows along nicely and never drags. The world (same as in STEAL THE DRAGON) could have had some potential if it hadn’t been neglected so badly (Sham and Kerim need some place to hold their witty dialogues after all). Fortunatelly the novel was revised before being republished in Aug 05, causing a definite improvement of style and story line.
Cliche works, this novel stands prove.